Researchers from UC Irvine and the University of Shizuoka in Japan used artificial antibodies made of plastic to capture antigens in the bloodstream of laboratory mice, according to a report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. It’s the first time that synthetic antibodies have worked in a living animal.

The authors created the synthetic antibodies with a technique known as molecular imprinting, which is akin to creating an impression in plaster. The antigen — in this case, melittin, found in bee toxin — was placed in a solution containing plastic monomers, which then linked to each other around the target molecule. After the antigen was rinsed out of the solution, the plastic polymers left behind conformed neatly to all the nooks and crannies of the target molecule. When the plastic antibodies were injected into mice that had received lethal doses of melittin, the majority of the animals survived.

This study’s another highlight in what has been a pretty good couple of months for synthetic biology. The success of the Venter Institute’s synthesized genome prompted a lot of press coverage and even caught President Obama’s eye — he asked his bioethics commission to do a six-month study on the benefits and risks of synthetic biology. The US government already leads the world in funding for synthetic biological research, having sunk $430 million into the still hazily-defined field over the past five years. European synthetic biologists only got $160 million over that same time period.

Image courtesy Kenneth Shea